Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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Hello,
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my name is Nicholas Rossello and this is a
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presentation I am doing for my business principles class.
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It is about business ethics violations.
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So my company is very well known
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car manufacturer
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and producer while around the world
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um, it's one of the biggest car manufacturers of all time,
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very popular
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and without further ado my company is drama please
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Volkswagen.
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So Volkswagen was founded in 1937 by the German Labor Front
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who at the time was a Nazi organization
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which
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was pretty much ran
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running the whole
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country at the time as it was under nazi rule.
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So many
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companies
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weren't ruled by the people, they were ruled by the government
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which was the german neighbor friend
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for
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working class citizens.
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So the company was formed out of Wolfsburg Germany
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and at the beginning of the company they had money so they were able to reach out to
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famous car designers such as Ferdinand Porsche
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who designed the beetle
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and their intention with that was to put out
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affordable cars as most people,
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we're not able to afford them and vehicles were an extreme luxury.
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So they advertised cars to be able to be priced at about
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1000 reichsmarks which will come out to around $140 today.
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which would hence the name
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of the original company being the people's company.
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What I take
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but after the war the responsibility of
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Volkswagen fell onto the british officer major
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Ivan Hirst as he single handedly saved
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Volkswagen from being destroyed as war reparations
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because he convinced his commanders
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of potential
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production
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um success and
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revenue.
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So
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they were able to receive this because during the war,
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um they invaded at the Volkswagen manufacturing plant
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and used it as a base as war went on.
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They produced
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weapons
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and vehicles and
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um used it as like a first aid center where
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our soldiers can stay during as war went on.
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But in September of 1945, after the war ended
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the British place.
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Therefore, first order of 20,000 vehicles to help run Postwar Germany
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As time went on, like 20 years or so later,
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they eventually gave the company back into German hands after
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it was fully
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detoxified.
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Now let's talk about some ethics violations.
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So
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before the war had erupted, the german front,
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the german labor front had civilians perform perform
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the labor of producing these vehicles, but no customer would be able to see one
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until after the ownership of the company fell into british hands.
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This is because the german Labor Front,
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we're actually using these vehicles for themselves and for
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their army while advertising them for the public.
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Their higher ups in the military
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and government were the only ones to ride around in
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these vehicles as a grand total of zero vehicles were produced
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for sale under german rule.
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During the war,
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they had continued production of vehicles by
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using slave labor at various Holocaust camps
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across Germany through 1939 through 1945,
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giving us
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the idea of a customer getting a product
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they will never receive is easily unethical.
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As around 336,000 people subscribe to buy a car via monthly savings plan.
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By the outbreak of the war, only a handful of cars were complete,
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but none were delivered to customers
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so easily.
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Almost a
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quarter of a million people
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subscribe to buy a car
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and
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not a single
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product gets put out
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with that promise of
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success.
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That's
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so
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easily a bad business plan. Just without the slave labor alone.
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Come on, You don't even have to say it.
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So now let's talk about some effects of the unethical acts.
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So it's obvious the ones that were infected.
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Most of the few remaining holocaust survivors who were
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forced to work upon these vehicles for many years,
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the ones who were tortured, be and often killed if they ever refused.
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These survivors eventually took Volkswagen report in 1998 and filed a
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lawsuit to which he survivors one and set up a restitution.
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The suit against this company and various others could total to around
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252 million. Set for the survivors.
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Thank you